The present invention relates to a method of directionally locating an electromagnetic or acoustic signal source.
The insights leading to the present invention were acquired from the needs relating to directionally locating acoustic signal sources. Accordingly the present description of the invention mostly concerns directionally locating acoustic sources. Nonetheless the expert easily understands that this invention is immediately applicable also to locating electromagnetic signal sources. The problem of ascertaining which kind the sources are being located only affects the kinds of sensors used in this invention. In the special case of locating acoustic signals, the sensor configuration is a set of microphones whereas when locating electromagnetic sources the system consists of a set of antennas followed by antenna amplifiers.
Presently procedures are known, which are mathematically complex or demand substantial equipment in order to locate such sources, especially in a field of several sources. If now less equipment is used by reducing the number of sensors, the mathematical complexity relating to source-location discrimination will increase. When locating acoustic signal sources, illustratively the determination of phase differences between acoustic signals simultaneously incident on the microphones of the microphone configuration will be selected.